I've been writing forever, kind of like Omega Vision, stared writing in elementary school, posted fanfics in high school/college - my stuff gets good reviews [I'm not sure what that has do to with anything...] But recently I have started a long-term Original Fiction. It's "Autobiographical," the narrator is the teller. I wanted to make it as ambiguous as I could, so I still don't know the sex of the narrator. It will help me majorly if people could read this first bit, and tell me "What sex is the narrator?"

People are said to have beautiful lives, beautiful from birth ‘till death, a complete cycle of beauty.

But the saying of it is where my experience must end, although conversely I am as forever beautiful as when the decision was made. I’ve seen the clock ended, and I’ve been stuck on that second in time.

I have seen a great deal of my most close, most loved friends and family go on, marching through the time that I smashed myself into a long, long time ago. They grew… grew old, grew tired, until suddenly the growing stops – and they are dead. Then, into the ground or onto the pyre they go, appointed places for appointed things. For they are things now, just things. Their souls have fled, to where, who knows? That is the soul’s knowledge.

I would give everything to know what that knowledge is… but is perhaps the one thing I won’t be able to get – no matter what nature would.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust – it is said many times, reverently and lovingly. That’s a strange thing to think, that someone’s ashes landed on the ground, a tree grown from where those ashes were once laid, that I can reach out and pick an apple from the tree, stealing, to once again be close to those I loved. And then it is ironic, that what should sustain me as an apple, becomes instead a mockery of what won’t sustain me, for technically, I am consuming the very essence of a human being and should be sustained.

My once-alive loved ones, if they were to know it, would weep, seeing me come to this. I wonder, although it I protected myself with the utmost secrecy, if ever one of them knew it alive, if any of them would be here with me, and yet I assure myself that none of them would have preferred this never-ending life. They would have taken the wiser path, I know it, not just seen the thing for its blessing, as I did, but see it for what it is… a Curse of the most unrelenting kind.

I didn’t grow up reading about myself. The Renaissance was a time for extravagance and opulence, not evil and its infinite ilk. There was nothing that a ruffle couldn’t fix and two couldn’t perfect, not a glaze or gloss or trifle that one did without. More ribbons on dresses, more colors on coats, more of everything. Little did I know that the more that I was used to could lead me down this path – where I ultimately have less.

Because there was nothing to educate me, I survived my trial and error. Many trials, and even more errors. I came close to death because of my clumsiness – errors that I can only wish for now, and regret that those things will never happen again. If only I wasn’t so human, too much so, to want to cling to life, for adrenaline to rush and to make me keep wanting to exist. Oh, the humanity! Lost to me now, forever.

Sometimes I wonder if it was just curiosity that made me take my path. Everyone longs to see what the grass is like on the other side, but no one was prepared to tell me that once on the other side, the fence would spring up and I wouldn’t be able to return.
But then, humankind has always been known to be curious. All the way back to Adam and Eve – temptingly, the Apple of Knowing was hung and its snake was a valuable advertisement, so much so that it wooed Eve and awoke in her her curiosity – the same curiosity that brought her both Life and Death if she just took one bite… How quaint the creature was a snake. A learning story indeed, and on other levels than the one it was meant for.

Just give in to your curiosity, sometimes you can be forgiven for it. After all, didn’t Eve and Adam receive an answer to their ignorance? Knowledge, of the forbidden kind, fulfilled curiosity. All yours. Just take one bite.

To know it by its true name is to be one of us. To be a Vampyre.
Most notably, not a “vampire.” This came in the time of nicknames, where Elizabeth ceased to be Elizabeth and began to be Lizzy, Cassandra a Cassie, and Katherine a Katie. Frivolous names ending in frivolous letters. A common dog regcognizes that sound so well, current owners and groomers take advantage of it, calling everything a “treatie” or a “bathie,” naming their pets what used to be names for humans, “Sophie” and “Sweetie” and “Herbie” and “Jackie.”

Why not, then, “Vampire,” or even someday “Vampie?”

But Vampyres we are, tracing back to its Russian roots... or roots before that… not Latin obviously, but some even more Dead language that humans have forgotten but we remember, an inner Remembering that comes with the rest of the skill-group. We have the basics, of course – elongated canines, fondly called “fangs” by those who seek to derive us from all human attributes. Strange eyes, never red, a staunchly inhuman color, but eyes with which come a strange glint, if looked at in precisely the right light and angle. We never change form, there’s no nonsense about turning into crows, wolves, rats or bats, but we can assimilate certain properties that, given a human under the right mind set, may change perception.

If evolution is true, it is true for us too. A Vampyre made today is infinitely more equipped to handle today’s time… but there is something to be said for experience. A great deal, in fact. As I said, trial and error tend to thin out when you’ve been around for a few centuries. You start sticking to schedules and timelines, to know when your body, such as it is, will crave sleep or food, rest or attention. We antiques are who you want to befriend if your world has just recently turned. But then, we’re notoriously hard to find. If you can survive your first fifty or so years, if you can ride the roller-coaster called Transitioning, the death rate for the undead flattens out to zero. Old habits die hard, and old habits from even older inhabitants die the hardest. If the Turner doesn’t stick around, and few are the cases where it doesn’t, those who are still able to pity may pick up a stray Transitioner. There are those who would like to prevent strays from being picked up, but it’s not a fight-worthy offense. Recently, there are two schools of thought, from those of us still thinking. The first is to spread the Curse, to create more and more of us, the issue of food sources to be solved if and when we get there, much like search for fossil fuels from forever dwindling sources. The second school of thought it that we must be contained, quarantined by ourselves so that we remain in control. It’s a bit like one of the more noble of humankind has said, “I should rather die on my knees a free man than stand a slave.” For that’s the issue. If Vampyres ever outnumber humans, we become slaves to ourselves.

I much rather like it this way. We are too many for even the most inclusive club, too little to be even one twenty-eighth of the population. That means that we’d have to more than quadruple in size instantaneously for there to be left six humans for every vampire. I make it my business to realize such things.

Luckily, humans come into the world far oftener than we do, and now, very little humans die of such Darwinian causes as polio, smallpox, malaria, and all other diseases that threaten life for which there is a cure. Nor will a fall make your leg gangrenous, and no longer does a stump for a leg give a human less of a chance to live.

As for myself, after my before I could be Turned completely, my Turner was unwilling or unable to perform its duties. But then, there Vampyres were counted by the hundreds, not the hundreds of thousands or even the thousands, and after barely surviving forty-eight hours of the Curse, I was taken under another Vampyre’s wing, one who bit and Turned responsibly and even now kept company with the oldest of his Turned. If ever a Vampyre was said to be good, it would be that one.

Even now, I wonder, after I have made the resolution to not name any names for fear of being called cliché or repetitive, for fear of these documents being called fake… should I not at least give a voice to my savior? I concede, for his sake – Antonio. Unadorned in human nobility but highly noted for Vampyre kindness, which, in any other case, would be oxymoron. I called him familiarly as Tony. What, in any other situation would’ve been the petit mort of society, became the only way to survive. Intimate details very suddenly became things that were Needed to Know, and any sort of privacy had to be swept away, as if a cobweb.

All I know is that Tony sheltered me and took care of me throughout my years of Transition, and without knowing him, I might never have discovered the few joys that can be known, though the Curse strikes strong and evilly to the very depths of all of us. I came to know that striving for noble intentions, and sometimes, very rarely, but still sometimes, noble intentions can be turned into noble actions.

The only sense of tragedy that came out of Tony happened at the time of his final days, and from the knowledge that I would never see him again. He made his decision before hand, knowing me as he did, that I would plead to him to change it, that I tried in all the ways that I could imagine to persuade him… but Tony wouldn’t have it. And in the end, I suppose I knew that what he did was for him alone, it was the best way of escaping the Curse for him, and that I was too much a coward to do as he did. And so when I was done crying from acception of his wishes, he gave me first a hammer, and second a sharpened stick, and third dropped something over my head. I felt the burn of a rosary, his wife’s, who had died naturally centuries before, and the only thing he ever kept of hers. Looking down at myself, the black jade of the rosary reflected fire for only a moment, burning my otherwise flawless skin, then cooled, belonging to me not as a holy relic, but a relic of Antonio – so a Holy Relic indeed.

There are all sorts of myths of how Vampyres can be killed, but one thing is the same through all of them – in Transition, our souls must be condemned, for the first bite brought us knowledge and eventual death, and for those who did not heed that warning, the second bite leads to everlasting nothingness – or hell, which may or may not exist. I know not – for I seem to be in hell itself.

But Antonio died as he lived, with loving beings beside him and around him. His mother who ushered him into life was dead, his Turner who ushered him into his life as the undead was missing, but I, one of the few who truly knew him and loved him despite everything, ushered him into nothingness by pounding the sharpened stick into his heart. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And dust is all that became of him, some I carefully gathered and kept, but most of it willed the wind to take it elsewhere – everywhere.

Well anyway, this might sound harsh, but if you don't know the gender of your narrator when you write a story I have to wonder if you know anything about the character at all. If you don't know superficial things like gender how can you know the character's yearning?

*stops channeling Bob Butler*

__________________

“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."

-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.

I know the character, their longing and their frustration, I know their souls, how they think, what thing they fear most, and what desperation looks like to them. I also know their happier moments, I know their favorite food, I know where and how they grew up.

Of course their sex makes a difference in the details, but I haven't started those yet. I'm still on the wider picture, with a beginning and end in sight. The way I wrote this bit, the character is trying to be as anonymous as possible - for reasons that the first chapter reveals, in part.

I posted this because my bestie said it sounded like a man, and I found that interesting; I wanted to find some independent evaluation. So I came here. I'm not looking for critique yet - although I know that's coming. I just am curious, because something was brought up to me, and I wanted to find out more.

Originally posted by siriuswriter I know the character, their longing and their frustration, I know their souls, how they think, what thing they fear most, and what desperation looks like to them. I also know their happier moments, I know their favorite food, I know where and how they grew up.

Of course their sex makes a difference in the details, but I haven't started those yet. I'm still on the wider picture, with a beginning and end in sight. The way I wrote this bit, the character is trying to be as anonymous as possible - for reasons that the first chapter reveals, in part.

I posted this because my bestie said it sounded like a man, and I found that interesting; I wanted to find some independent evaluation. So I came here. I'm not looking for critique yet - although I know that's coming. I just am curious, because something was brought up to me, and I wanted to find out more.

Ahh gotcha. My bad.

__________________

“Where the longleaf pines are whispering
to him who loved them so.
Where the faint murmurs now dwindling
echo o’er tide and shore."

-A Grave Epitaph in Santa Rosa County, Florida; I wish I could remember the man's name.

Originally posted by siriuswriter I've been writing forever, kind of like Omega Vision, stared writing in elementary school, posted fanfics in high school/college - my stuff gets good reviews [I'm not sure what that has do to with anything...] But recently I have started a long-term Original Fiction. It's "Autobiographical," the narrator is the teller. I wanted to make it as ambiguous as I could, so I still don't know the sex of the narrator. It will help me majorly if people could read this first bit, and tell me "What sex is the narrator?"

So here goes [four pages on Word.]

I would say female, there's a passage where your character says:

'This came in the time of nicknames, where Elizabeth ceased to be Elizabeth and began to be Lizzy, Cassandra a Cassie, and Katherine a Katie'.

This instinctual and familiar use of feminine names could be a small sign that it's female. Or not, it all depends on perception but you have done well though to keep the rest of it neutral but that part stands out for me

Thank you so much, LSZ. Yeah, I think I'm going with a female. I'll probably be littering the manuscript with stuff like that unknowingly, probably because I'm a girl myself, and I like it, so it'd be hard to edit out all those places.

Thanks for everyone's help.

I may keep on putting up snatches of stuff, just to get an opinion on something, but I think this first bit is solved.